Peter Godman. Hitler and the Vatican: Inside the Secret Archives that Reveal the New Story of the Nazis and the Church. New York: Free Press, 2004. xvi + 282 pp. $27.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-7432-4597-5. Reviewed by Jacques Kornberg Published on H-German (October, 2005) Peter Godman of the University of Rome, a stake out some educated guesses about their scholar who has studied the Catholic Church, was thoughts and motives. one of the frst people granted permission to mine Still, in my view, Godman, to his credit, has the recently opened archives of the Supreme Con‐ resolved some contentious issues. The evidence gregation of the Holy Office for the pontificate of he has amassed makes clear that higher circles in Pius XI (1922-39). In keeping with the times, the the Vatican, including Pius XI and his Secretary of Holy Office currently bears the less forbidding State Cardinal Pacelli, regarded Nazism as a men‐ name of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the ace to civilization, and saw no affinities between Faith; it was once known as the Universal Inquisi‐ the Church and Nazism in a common authoritari‐ tion. Headed by bishops and cardinals, the Con‐ anism, or even anti-communism. Pius XI's one- gregation pronounces on doctrine in matters of time praise of Hitler's anti-Bolshevism in March, faith and morals. 1933, was an aberration (p. 8). Moreover, the Nazi Godman contrasts his own "behind the persecution of the Jews was seen as nothing short scenes" view based on a close reading of the Holy of barbaric (pp. 8, 67-70). But this sentiment did Office documents, with the "hot air of speculation" not mean that the Vatican was to take a militant hanging over the works of John Cornwell and stand against National Socialism or against the Daniel Goldhagen. There is some truth to his persecution of the Jews. Godman defines the Vati‐ claim, but he sets expectations too high when he can stance as "a course between criticism and professes to open a window into "the thoughts conciliation," and he makes clear that this was and motives" of those who made policy (p. xv). All Vatican policy from the fateful year of 1933 (p. we have of Pius XI and his Secretary of State, Car‐ 16). Thus, we cannot reduce Vatican policy to per‐ dinal Pacelli, are office memos, public statements, sonalities, as so much of the literature on Pius XII protocols of meetings, reports of papal audiences, does; we cannot pose Pius XI as a thundering an‐ and letters to bishops; we will always have to tagonist of National Socialism, against Pius XII, H-Net Reviews the cautious accommodator and timid appeaser. ening its denunciation of the latter. Godman ar‐ Vatican policy was of a piece from 1933-45. In‐ gues that the condemnation of both "totalitari‐ deed, the pattern was set in June, 1933, by the anisms" must be seen against the background of then-retired Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro the Spanish Civil War, in which clergy were mas‐ Gasparri: "I am of the opinion that Hitler's Party sacred by the Spanish republican government, corresponds to nationalist feeling in Germany. supported by the Soviets, while Italy and Ger‐ Therefore a politico-religious struggle in Germany many intervened militarily in support of the anti- over Hitlerism must be avoided at all costs" (p. 7). Communist Franco. On the plus side, the Domini‐ How does Godman make his case that Vatican can report upheld "the law of justice and love to‐ policy veered between "criticism and concilia‐ ward all races, by no means excluding the tion," and how is Vatican policy to be explained? "Semitic race" (pp. 103-104, 129, 194-199). Jews His account begins in 1934, when the Holy Office were thus mentioned for the first time. commissioned two German Jesuits to prepare a It was 1937 when Pius XI fnally decided to report on National Socialist ideology, for the pur‐ act, issuing the the more equivocal and less wide- pose of condemning it. Coming from the Holy Of‐ ranging encyclical Mit brennender Sorge. The en‐ fice, such a condemnation, binding in matters of cyclical emphasized the German government's vi‐ faith and morals, and signed by the pope, would olations of the Concordat, hence the rights of the have branded National Socialism a heresy (pp. 4, Church, and gave racism and human rights less 61). The Jesuits' report was presented to the Holy emphasis. In addition, Godman argues: "the forth‐ Office in 1935, only to be watered down, and fnal‐ right language of condemnation traditional in pa‐ ly take the form, two years later, of the more pal censures ... [was] replaced by ... circumlocu‐ equivocal and less wide-ranging papal encyclical tion" (pp. 142-147). Furthermore, the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge. The original report of the had been preceded by two days by another, Divini Jesuits listed forty-seven propositions to be con‐ Redemptoris, a condemnation of Communism demned: these included nationalism, expansion‐ which was more blunt than Mit brennender ism, militarism, racism, the totalitarian state, and Sorge. In a fnal move, Pius XI ordered the rectors violations of natural and divine law, such as of Catholic universities and seminaries to refute forced sterilization (pp. 172-193). Though Nazi an‐ the "ideology of blood and race" and the subordi‐ tisemitism was not mentioned, Godman argues nation of the individual to the state. This was a far that the report went far beyond merely protecting more low-level condemnation than a decree by the Church, to support universal human rights the Holy Office or even an encyclical; it was Pius's "and the duty of its defense by the papacy" (p. 89). way of expressing disapproval of Hitler without The Jesuit report was presented to the Holy attacking him directly (pp. 158-159). Four long Office in 1935. The temporizing pace of Vatican years had passed between Pius's commission to deliberations was such that in 1936 the Holy Of‐ the Jesuits and the issuing of Mit brennender fice asked Dominican consultants to comment on Sorge, a sign of how guarded and hesitant the Vat‐ the report by the Jesuits. The Dominicans reduced ican was from the very beginning. the forty-seven Jesuit propositions to twenty-five, Pope Pius XI and Cardinal Pacelli, his Secre‐ and softened their wording. Worried about "diffi‐ tary of State, uttered plenty of strong words culties with governments," they omitted the Jesuit against National Socialist ideology, but they hard‐ condemnation of the "racial state." In addition, ly did so when it counted. Thus in April, 1935, Car‐ the new report was a condemnation of both Com‐ dinal Pacelli condemned "the superstition of race munism and National Socialism, effectively weak‐ and blood." But in September, 1935, when the 2 H-Net Reviews racist, Nuremberg decrees were issued, not a peep thought frst of all, of its pastoral role, of provid‐ was heard from the Vatican. In an audience with ing Catholics with the instruments of salvation (p. Belgium Catholics in September, 1938, Pius XI de‐ 7). Pastoral care trumped upholding the moral clared: "antisemitism is inadmissible. We are spir‐ law. Long-held theological and ecclesiological as‐ itually Semites." Two months later, Pius XI re‐ sumptions drove this policy. Laying bare these as‐ sponded to the November pogrom--synagogues sumptions is outside the scope of Godman's book. set afire, cemeteries desecrated, almost a hundred While Godman's book is on papal policy to‐ Jews murdered, twenty thousand put in concen‐ ward National Socialism, he devotes a great deal tration camps--with utter silence (p. 163). The Vat‐ of space to the Austrian bishop Alois Hudal, who ican did not lose its voice only when it came to sought a synthesis of Catholicism and National So‐ Jews, for it had nothing to say about the 1933 law cialism. I was not persuaded that the effort was authorizing the compulsory sterilization of the well spent, for Hudal provided nothing more than "hereditarily ill," even though the law violated a sideshow to the main lines of Vatican policy. Catholic doctrine (p. 37). Silence reigned when Aside from that, Godman's book is a welcome cor‐ four prominent Catholic lay leaders were assassi‐ rective to the single-minded preoccupation with nated in June, 1934, during the "Night of the Long Pope Pius XII as arch conciliator of Nazi Germany. Knives," though a month earlier, in a note to the Indeed, by the time Pius XII became pope in 1939, German government, Secretary of State Pacelli the risks of crossing Hitler were much greater had denounced "the false and deceptive message than they had been under Pius XI. The similari‐ of the new materialism of race" (pp. 73-74). ties, not the differences between Pius XI and Pius Why were the strong words coupled with a XII, are important. The awesome office of the pa‐ weak response to Nazi outrages? For one, Godman pacy, the oldest continuous institution in Europe, sees papal power as far less absolute than many founded by divine fat--Pius XII was the 257th think, evident in Pius XI's lapses of indecisiveness pope or vicar of Christ--tends to trump personali‐ about policy towards National Socialism, and also ty and drive its incumbents to the one overriding in his fear of having his authority weakened by is‐ goal of institutional survival. suing thundering condemnations, and then being ignored by German Catholics (pp. 166-167). Tacti‐ cally, diplomatic protests to the German govern‐ ment were limited to violations of Church rights set out in the 1933 Concordat, even with the knowledge that Hitler treated the Concordat with the same derision as any other treaty (p.